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Viva Pinata: Party Animals Review (X360)

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Viva Pinata: Party Animals Review (X360)Microsoft
Unlike the first Viva Pinata game, which looked like a kids game but leaned a little more towards adults with the gameplay, Viva Pinata Party Animals is a kids game through and through. This minigame collection slash racing game pairs the characters from the FOX Saturday morning TV show with some easy and pretty mindless gameplay that is sure to keep the kids entertained. Well, kids under 8 or so. Pre-teens and older will likely get bored with it pretty quickly. Find out more right here.
Quick Hits

  • Title: Viva Pinata: Party Animals
  • Platform:Xbox 360
  • Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
  • Developer: Krome Studios
  • ESRB Rating: “E” for Everyone
  • Genre: Family party game
  • Pros: Nice graphics; easy for kids to play; easy achievements
  • Cons: Made for fans of the TV show, NOT fans of the original game; minigames are pretty mindless and boring and a lot of them just aren’t any good

Features

Viva Pinata: Party Animals stars the characters from the Saturday morning TV show. Hudson Hostrachio, Franklin Fizzlybear, Fergie Fudgehog, and more of your favorites are present and ready for some minigame action. As far as modes go, you have the choice to “Play At Home” or “Play Online”, and that is it. Then, you and three other players, whether they are human or CPU controlled, jump into a series of minigames. Unlike, say, Nintendo’s “party” games, there isn’t any game board or strategy here. It is all just one minigame after another with no real rhyme or reason for any of it.

For achievement junkies, Party Animals provides some quick and easy points. I earned 200 points in my first 10 minute playthrough without really knowing what the heck I was doing. All of the achievements are pretty easy, and you can get most of them if not all in a couple of hours.

Gameplay

Microsoft
The minigames in Party Animals alternate between racing and more traditional minigames. There are six types of tradional minigame, with a few variations of each. Before each event, the loading screen explains the controls and what you are supposed to be doing. Events include smacking into other characters so their candy spills out, drinking soda and then burping to propel a toy boat across a finish line, shooting targets, and more. All of the games have super easy controls that mostly just rely on timed button presses more than anything else. There aren’t that many games, unfortunately, and you’ll run through them all pretty quickly.

The races are slightly more interesting, but still fall short due to their simplicity. Rather than vehicles, the piñatas just run through the track, finding weapons and blasting away their competition to reach the finish line first. The races are only one lap, and while there are some shortcuts on the track to find, the racing is easy and boring and not all that fun.

This is a game that was clearly designed with kids in mind, but it is a bit too simple and too easy to really hold up over multiple play sessions even for kids. It does make for a solid rental to play as a family, though. Playing with multiple real people, particularly if they are in the same room, makes the game quite a bit more enjoyable. And you can spend $5 on it to get your fill rather than $50.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically, Viva Pinata: Party Animals looks pretty darn good. It uses a lot of the assets from the first game, which looked amazing, so it is no surprise that Party Animals looks nice as well. It is bright and colorful and just screams fun.

The sound is similarly candy coated. The music is upbeat and the voice acting, while over the top, fits in just fine. All of the taunts and voice clips during events repeat over and over and over, however, which grates on you after a few games.

Bottom Line

Microsoft
Overall, Viva Pinata: Party Animals is a pretty mediocre game. There just isn’t enough substance to really hold up over the long term, even for the intended audience which is children. It can be a fun game to play as a family, and there are some easy gamerscore points for you lone wolf achievement junkies out there, but Viva Pinata: Party Animals is only a rental at best.

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